A Mexican Cable Fable

One of the things making expat life such a phenomenon is the internet. No matter where you go, you can bring parts of your life with you: television shows, sports, even family connections. This access greatly mitigates the home-sickness any expat might feel living far away in a different culture. Of course the internet is (in the famous quote from the late-Senator Ted Stevens) “a series of tubes” through space. Tubes, cables, whatever. The ridiculous metaphor works on many levels, since a small series of cables is the lifeline which provides the whole world to your home. Yes, your telephone does it without cables and delivers it to the palm of your hand, but only a digital native wants to stare at a palm-sized screen all day.

When we arrived in Mexico, our first house had internet supplied by TelMex, the onetime Mexican government utility now owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. It was old-school copper, bundled with your landline, and you could get upwards of 20 Megabytes per second (mbs), enough to stream live television. Reliability was always an issue, with frequent outages and significant speed lags when more users logged in. Years behind the developed world, but good enough.

Eventually fiber optics came to Mexico. TelMex by law had to provide it to all customers, installed free of charge, but their roll-out plan was several years long. Our neighborhood paid to jump the queue, getting fiber optic cable installed early. Of course it was a classic negotiation: we had to pay to have it done, while those immediately around us declined to join in, getting the installation for free. Our neighborhood voted to go ahead, since we wanted the improved speeds (>50 mbs) and reliability. As for our other neighbors, it was just their good fortune to get access, too.

You might be wondering at the fiber optic speed, as in the States it would be in the hundreds of megabytes per second. Here, the fiber optic cable runs to a box in your neighborhood, but the last hundred feet or so are still copper cable into your house and modem, resulting in less performance. Fiber optic cable is expensive and delicate, so TelMex decided to take the performance reduction and avoid the problem of all that cable maintenance. I can’t say that I blame them. If you step on it, kink it, or otherwise molest it, fiber optic cable dies. Copper is far more resilient. You’ll see just how much more later.

Years later we moved into another house closer to the Ajijic centro, and the TelMex fiber optic was already in place there. We were all set for about a year, until the quality and the performance became unstable. It went out for days at a time, and when it worked, speeds dropped below one mbs (barely able to read e-mail) in the evening. Needless to say, television and streaming were out of the question.

We flagged down a TelMex vehicle in our neighborhood (that’s what you do here), and the technico (repairman) agreed to take a look. His instruments told him there was a signal getting through to our modem, but it was very weak, and there was something wrong down the line leading into the house. He showed me where our connection ran along our property line, then into a retaining wall and down to a junction box. The copper cable was stuck inside a broken, corroded plastic tube as protection: for all intents and purposes, it might as well have been lying on the ground. And in the junction box was a mass of extra cable, left there by the installers probably because they didn’t want to bring it back. It was a mess, and the technico couldn’t tell where the problem was, as he was primarily an “indoor” repairman, and this was clearly an “outdoor” problem. He worked for several hours identifying where the cables were, but could not help us any further. He even refused a propina (tip), as he said it was just his job. We weren’t excited about contacting TelMex for help, as we had heard plenty of stories of bad customer service.

We had upcoming travel, so we delayed contacting TelMex. We adapted and endured for a few months. I started using the internet early in the morning, when there was sufficient bandwidth. Judy & I shared time, to make sure we both weren’t trying to use the same few mbs. We sometimes used our phones, even for hotpots, but our T-mobile unlimited international plan throttles you down to 2- or 3-G speed when you are outside the States. We made do. Finally, the internet connection went out completely, and we had to contact TelMex for help.

Judy used the app (en español) to alert them to the problem and what their technico previously had told us. She lost the chat before she completed it, and thought she may have to start over. When she did the next day, they informed her that we already had a trouble ticket and would see a repairman shortly. At least they didn’t say, “mañana.” The next day, he alerted us he was coming and arrived late in the afternoon. He confirmed we had no connection, and I showed him the cable and the junction box. He inspected the cables, and while he agreed they weren’t protected properly, he said the problem must be further up the line.

He walked along until he found the appropriate utility culvert and opened it up. Inside there was another mass of cables, and another junction box for the incoming fiber optic cable. The tunnel was full of dirt, water and an ant colony, the latter quite upset their secure complex was disturbed! The technico brushed all this off (he had seen worse, obviously) and picked up the fiber optic cable, half of which was sticking loose out of the junction box. You could see the cut open ends of the cable and the light shining through! How it got that way he didn’t know; he seemed amazed anybody in our neighborhood had internet with that connection. He told us he needed to return the next day with more equipment and a partner to help test the re-installation.

Late the next afternoon, they started in on the junction box, cleaning the leads and reconnecting the cable. After about two hours, he came up to the house to say they were done, and our internet connection should be restored. It was: a bounteous 50+ mbs! Yes, we still see pretty substantial changes in speed, and brief outages. And we’ve purchased a Starlink dish as satellite backup. And no, the TelMex workers still refused a propina.

Lessons learned? Internet access is a key component to expat life. We bank, connect to family, plan travel, and socialize using it. TelMex customer service was very good. They were willing to speak slowly in Spanish, and happy we could understand and respond. Things like internet speeds are relative, and you can live with much less than sizzling. Global internet access continues to increase. It is amazing to me we’re using the same satellite system (Starlink) as a back-up that the Ukrainian army is using to fight the Russians, but that’s the nature of technology today. Sometimes old tech like copper wires has its uses, especially if the new tech like fiber optics is fragile.

Nothing momentous, just another aspect of life as an expat.